For me, the context was surplus to drive prices down.
Then you want to regulate the market such that there’s a surplus of ordinary apartments and a relative lack of luxury ones. People are free to furnish theirs more luxuriously, that’s not an imposition, but not having affordable ones would be. No need to get into fixing absolute prices all you need to control for is relative availability.
The market is not a good in itself. It is a mechanism to attain good things. To do that, in the real world, to actually approach the free market ideal (perfect resource allocation by perfectly rational actors acting on perfect information) you have to enact regulations because, as we already discussed, both rich and poor folks alike are idiots: The rich invest in stuff based on hype, creating real estate bubbles, the poor tolerate 120 buck fridges even though they want 150 buck fridges.
If the market goes down, many people lose their retirement provisions.
Again we’re in /c/europe, here, not in the US. Also why should irrational investors deserve protection. “Socialism for the rich but not the poor”?
There are not enough plots, in Germany the rent is capped but the building requirements don’t allow to reduce costs.
Rent increases are capped. Not rents for new construction. Rents that the welfare system will pay are capped, not the ones on the open market.
…and yes there are plots. There’s actually a shortage of construction capacity, not in the least because politics just won’t commit to firm targets, something that construction companies can work with, make sure they don’t overshoot when growing. They’d rather not go bankrupt so they only increase capacity conservatively.
Change those, and capital will build more housing.
There is no shortage of capital flowing into the market, there has never been a shortage during all of this. The issue that noone wants to, or can, pay the rents that those people demand. We’ve been over this. The same investment at a more moderate ROI expectation would’ve built everything we need multiple times over.
There are enough laws in Germany that you cannot have a prefabricated house and build it everywhere without ajustments.
Oh sure some municipalities will tell you that your roof needs to be at a certain angle. That’s peanuts compared to the overall costs and believe it or not, there’s generally a reason for those requirements – it may seem cultural but if you e.g. get a lot of snow you either want all snow to come down as fast as possible, or not at all. People weren’t stupid 500 years ago when everyone started to angle their roofs like that.
Low tech high risers should bring rent down to a fraction but they are not allowed to be built.
They’re absolutely allowed to be built, you can still build the same kind of housing stock as was done after the war during reconstruction.
Lastly, beware of looking at all this in isolation: Getting rid of regulations that ensure that the city looks nice, is liveable, is walkable, that housing is healthy to live in, the whole shebang, would have untold macroeconomic costs down the line.
Then you want to regulate the market such that there’s a surplus of ordinary apartments and a relative lack of luxury ones. People are free to furnish theirs more luxuriously, that’s not an imposition, but not having affordable ones would be. No need to get into fixing absolute prices all you need to control for is relative availability.
The market is not a good in itself. It is a mechanism to attain good things. To do that, in the real world, to actually approach the free market ideal (perfect resource allocation by perfectly rational actors acting on perfect information) you have to enact regulations because, as we already discussed, both rich and poor folks alike are idiots: The rich invest in stuff based on hype, creating real estate bubbles, the poor tolerate 120 buck fridges even though they want 150 buck fridges.
Again we’re in /c/europe, here, not in the US. Also why should irrational investors deserve protection. “Socialism for the rich but not the poor”?
Rent increases are capped. Not rents for new construction. Rents that the welfare system will pay are capped, not the ones on the open market.
…and yes there are plots. There’s actually a shortage of construction capacity, not in the least because politics just won’t commit to firm targets, something that construction companies can work with, make sure they don’t overshoot when growing. They’d rather not go bankrupt so they only increase capacity conservatively.
There is no shortage of capital flowing into the market, there has never been a shortage during all of this. The issue that noone wants to, or can, pay the rents that those people demand. We’ve been over this. The same investment at a more moderate ROI expectation would’ve built everything we need multiple times over.
Oh sure some municipalities will tell you that your roof needs to be at a certain angle. That’s peanuts compared to the overall costs and believe it or not, there’s generally a reason for those requirements – it may seem cultural but if you e.g. get a lot of snow you either want all snow to come down as fast as possible, or not at all. People weren’t stupid 500 years ago when everyone started to angle their roofs like that.
They’re absolutely allowed to be built, you can still build the same kind of housing stock as was done after the war during reconstruction.
Lastly, beware of looking at all this in isolation: Getting rid of regulations that ensure that the city looks nice, is liveable, is walkable, that housing is healthy to live in, the whole shebang, would have untold macroeconomic costs down the line.